The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Politico Wrong Again? Cain Staffers Dispute Report He’ll End Campaign; UPDATE: ‘Full Speed Ahead’?

Posted on | December 3, 2011 | 32 Comments

Been kind of busy this morning, as readers might imagine, working up an exclusive for The American Spectator:

While some published reports indicate that Herman Cain plans to announce today that he will suspend his Republican presidential campaign, even top staff on the campaign still have no idea what Cain’s decision will be.
“I don’t know anything,” said one staffer who was working in a key early state this morning. The campaign’s field director Jamie Brazil “doesn’t know anything,” the staffer said in a brief phone interview.
Politico cited “multiple sources” for its report that the Atlanta businessman was “leaning toward suspending the campaign,” a report dismissed by the staffer.
“Nobody knows. The honest answer is, nobody f–king knows. I don’t know. I don’t even know if Mark Block knows. My guess is that he probably does not. … Everybody’s just waiting. I think the honest truth is, whoever talked to Politico … is speculative. I mean, everybody’s got their opinion of what he might say or do, but nobody knows for sure.” . . .

Read the whole thing.

It’s kind of funny how much easier it is to get exclusives once you threaten to beat the campaign communications director into a bloody mess. Many “sources close to the campaign” wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. If the Cain campaign continues, J.D. Gordon will almost certainly be fired.

UPDATE: “Everybody hates J.D.,” says a source close to the campaign, after describing how one longtime Cain adviser “laughed for five minutes” when told about my sarcastic remarks about Gordon.

One veteran political correspondent to whom I spoke this morning said that he had long been in direct  e-mail communication with top Cain campaign staffers Mark Block and Linda Hansen, and even with the candidate himself. “That all stopped in October,” said the reporter, who never had any dealings with Gordon. “Who is this guy, anyway?”

Meanwhile, another source close to the campaign said, shortly before noon, that “all the internal communications” indicate that Cain’s plan are to go “full speed ahead” with the campaign, and predicted that the candidate will give a “defiant” speech in Atlanta.

 

 
RECENTLY:

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

E-Mail to a Cain Campaign Staffer

Posted on | December 3, 2011 | 39 Comments

Shortly after midnight, I received an e-mail from an aide to the Herman Cain campaign, evidently alarmed by expressions of wrath in last night’s post. In the wee hours this morning, I replied to that e-mail with a simple question: “Has J.D. Gordon been fired?” So then I went to bed and, upon checking my e-mail after waking up this morning, I found a reply to the effect of “I don’t know.” To which I then replied:

When I woke up, after five hours sleep, the question in my mind was this: To whom is my loyalty owed?
That is to say, am I writing on behalf of the people who have been paid to do a job at which they have conspicuously failed — and I think the name J.D. Gordon is at or near the top of that list — or am I writing on behalf of the many thousands of small donors who have helped pay the salaries of the failures, and on behalf of the unpaid volunteers whose long hours of labor have been squandered because of those failures?
And look: “Multiple sources told POLITICO late Friday that Cain was leaning toward quitting.”
Where are MY “multiple sources,” huh? How come I could get nothing from anybody?
— RSM

Perhaps readers will get the point without my explaining it, but I’ll explain anyway: When J.D. Gordon screwed me over by leaving me off Tuesday’s conference call, I took it personally. But it’s not just about me. It’s about people who supported Herman Cain who have been screwed over by that kind of routine incompetence by staffers who were being paid to do jobs at which they failed.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

Why Can’t Obama?

Posted on | December 3, 2011 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

This. Must. Be. The. Question:
Click the image to watch:

If The Tea Party Can Balance Budget In Four Years, Why Can’t Obama?

There are a couple of issues of equal weight today, and maybe the boom gets lowered after the GOP primaries, but, to paraphrase Da Tech Guy, every day the failure of #OccupyResoluteDesk to do his basic job is not the #1 story, is a Day of Win for the White House.

Related:
Sen. Schumer’s Deed Shall Live In Infamy

Category: Barack Obama, PJTV

Scott Ott With The News

Posted on | December 2, 2011 | 3 Comments

by Smitty

I’m totally a fan of this mildly dry wit. The Aqua Buddha joke works the best on this clip:

Category: humor, PJTV

Excrement Impacts Air-Circulation Device UPDATE: Dear Mr. Cain … $7 Million?

Posted on | December 2, 2011 | 47 Comments

This afternoon, I went to the bank and then went to Wal-Mart to get some ink cartridges for my printer ($41.28 — hit the freaking tip jar). As is my habit when I’m offline for more than a few minutes, I kept working the cell phone the whole time I was out, calling sources and so forth, and spoke to multiple people about the Herman Cain campaign.

Never mind today’s news: What the hell is going on inside the inner circle? At one point, I grabbed my pen and scrawled a few quotes from a source: “[Name of campaign staffer] killed Herman Cain . . . I’m a little pissed about it. . . . Everybody was turf-guarding.”

Obviously, you don’t know what those quotes signify, and the omitted name is neither Mark Block nor J.D. Gordon, although their names came up frequently in conversations with people who are sick and tired of what one source called the “clusterf–k nightmare” that the Cain campaign has become. People who hope and believe that Herman Cain will keep going and may actually mount a miracle comeback are demanding that someone — or better yet, everyone — on the senior campaign staff be fired, if not indeed horsewhipped within an inch of their miserable lives.

“I’m a little pissed” — that one source severely understates the wrath of many people who love Herman Cain, but hate his campaign.

Inevitably, however, the helpless confusion of the campaign reflects on the candidate: He’s the guy whose business expertise is about finding the right people to focus on the right problem. But the people he has found — well, they are the problem.

“How the f–k is he going to run the country if he can’t run a g–d–d campaign?”

Maybe that was a source. Or maybe that was me, shouting into my phone while standing in the electronics aisle at Wal-Mart. I wasn’t taking notes at that point, so I’m not exactly sure, although I do remember some shoppers giving me startled looks, so it was probably me.

Well, anyway, I got back home, went to work on some projects, including arrangements for my trip to Iowa (departing Dec. 26 — hit the freaking tip jar) and by the time I had time to look at the headlines . . . Yeah, “clusterf–k nightmare” sums it up:

Herman Cain nearing
decision on candidacy
— Washington Post

Cain Plans ‘Announcement’
on Saturday About Future 
— Fox News

Herman Cain’s Marriage
Shaken by Infidelity Charges
— The Daily Beast

Assessing Cain: Charisma isn’t enough
— Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader

From my perspective, these headlines are much less consequential than “Stacy McCain Excluded From Conference Call,” but I understand if the rest of the world doesn’t see it from my perspective.

The factional infighting among various cliques and personalities within the Cain campaign staff — yeah, I could tell you some of that. (Source: “What does [name of staffer] actually do?”) However, I hope within 24 hours to be able to report that the entire Cain campaign staff have taken their quarrels with them on the way to the unemployment office.

And perhaps in a week or so, you’ll see one of these ex-staffers standing by the freeway ramp, disheveled and bleary-eyed, holding up a crudely lettered cardboard sign: “Will F–k Up Your Campaign for $$$.”

UPDATE: If it is true, as I have been told since this post went online, that Herman Cain’s campaign currently has $7 million cash on hand, the overwhelming likelihood is that Herman Cain will not quit — and that is exclusive news.

With $7 million, Cain can do a lot of things: Even if his “burn rate” amounted to $500,000 a week on average, he could make it all the way through February — without raising another dime. But if he could actually manage to continue his campaign despite all the evil that has been heaped upon his name, that would be enough of a moral victory as perhaps to inspire greater support and continued contributions.

And how much would it cost to send J.D. Gordon to take charge of the Cain campaign headquarters in Fargo, North Dakota? Probably less than it would cost to clean up the bloody mess that will be left of him if I ever lay eyes on that useless son of bitch again.

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

Lisa Murkowski’s Endorsement Of Mitt Romney May Not Pack The Heat Of Charlie Sheen’s, But It’s Still ‘Winning’

Posted on | December 2, 2011 | 30 Comments

by Smitty

Who says ‘Ruling Class Overlord’ more than Princess Lisa?

Mitt Romney announced today that he had been endorsed by Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski,

I'm sure that Leona Helmsley must have been a fan
Really hard to say. John Kerry, maybe?

via The Corner

Update: linked at The POH Diaries

Category: Alaska, Mitt Romney

Congratulations, @PinkElephantPun!

Posted on | December 2, 2011 | 8 Comments

Tabitha Hale has been hired by the Franklin Center, which means she is now a colleague of Erik Telford, forming an alliance of historic proportions: Lenin and Trotsky, Saccho and Vanzetti, Leopold and Loeb, Molotov and Ribbentrop, Hale and Telford.

The Franklin Center is a non-profit institution evidently dedicated to ensuring that I am never invited to speak on a conference panel.

When Tabitha sent the news to an e-mail list, I replied:

Congratulations, Tabitha. Of course, you can never be replaced, but which one of my worst enemies will fill the job opening at FreedomWorks? If anybody on the list is applying, let me know, and I’ll pre-emptively denounce you, which should count in your favor. On the other hand, if I hate you, I’ll give you a good recommendation that will permanently taint your reputation.
— RSM

Because I’m helpful like that.

Category: Tabitha Hale

Call It ‘DWaStic Measures’

Posted on | December 2, 2011 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Having just completed a study in the corrosive effects of Postmodern thinking, I feel especially equipped to denounce Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as a completely useless sack of nonsense.

DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) says the Republican party is trying to disenfranchise and “suppress” the votes of minorities and other groups in the Democratic voting bloc by enacting laws requiring a valid I.D. at polls.
“It’s very transparent who they’re trying to block from the polls and who they want to smooth the path for,” Wasserman Schultz said in an interview with MSNBC’s Martin Bashir.

Why no, you prevaricating piffle peddler: establishing the validity of an election is not suppression at all. You could as reasonably argue that requiring driver’s licences is a disenfranchisement of the World’s Youngest Blogger, though, at 4 months, he has neither teeth nor enough arm strength to crawl.

It is a sad statement of the caliber of our elected officials, and our electorate, that somebody who is the Chair-idiot of a major political party would waste time making such an accusation. DWS, if you have the facts, pound the facts. If you have the law, pound the law. You’ve got neither? POUND SAND!

There is plenty of indication of electoral fraud on the Left. I submit that conservatives need to take DWaStic Measures against DWS and her ilk, and push back twice as hard whenever common sense itself comes under attack in the form of this finger pointing. Anybody with a finger can point it. DWS needs to back that finger up with facts, or face a chorus of people calling her out for the scurrilous propaganda monger she is.

The reality is that these sick Progressives, with their penchant for Postmodern, non-sequitur bomb throwing know that their time is up, and that honest, solid elections featuring valid voters are going to kick their lying tails out of office all the sooner.

Karen Harrington for Congress

via Dana Loesch on Twitter

Update: linked at Katy Pundit.

Category: Democrats, Election
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